


Addiction

by sky_blue_hightops



Category: Video Blogging RPF, idk how to tag fandoms for this, jacksepticeye
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Blood and Injury, Fights, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, Major Character Injury, Whump, first time writing for jse!, jackie has a Bad Time guys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-12
Updated: 2019-01-12
Packaged: 2019-10-08 15:27:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17388926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sky_blue_hightops/pseuds/sky_blue_hightops
Summary: It only became a problem, he realized,when he stopped thinking of it as one.He was used to bloodstains seeping through his suit to stain the wrists of his undershirts. He was used to black eyes, and cut lips, and sore muscles. Pain was the most intrinsic side-effect of his job, and a small...partof him had always been fueled by it. Sought it, even. It's what made him as fearless as he was, as effective in helping the people he protected - or, at least, that's what he told himself when he wasn't quite sure who he was doing this for anymore.He stopped trying to fool himself after...Well. After.***Some coping mechanisms are just as unhealthy as others.





	Addiction

_It only became a problem_ , he realized, _when he stopped thinking of it as one._

He was used to bloodstains seeping through his suit to stain the wrists of his undershirts. He was used to black eyes, and cut lips, and sore muscles. Pain was the most intrinsic side-effect of his job, and a small... _part_ of him had always been fueled by it. Sought it, even. It's what made him as fearless as he was, as effective in helping the people he protected - or, at least, that's what he told himself when he wasn't quite sure who he was doing this for anymore.

He stopped trying to fool himself after...

Well. After.

 

He spat a mouthful of blood to the side, the dark red almost black in the dim glow of the streetlights. His arms were almost completely numb from either adrenaline or pain, the same cold burn spreading across his chest and face to coil sharp and comforting in his gut. His breaths rasped warm in the night air; tiny, erratic puffs that did nothing to alleviate the tightness of his lungs or throat.

Before him five men leered, hands full with knives or pipes or various other ways of inflicting pain - Jackie shook his head to clear it. It didn't matter. He'd seen it all before. He'd felt it all before.

Did anything matter anymore?

He knew when the first swung his pipe before the man even had a chance to, the hero already in tune to the grit of the men's shoes and the way their own breaths clouded in the air as if he had known them for years. His fists were up in front of his face without a conscious thought, and the hollow metal pipe connected with a dull thud that would've made the hero wince if he had had time to react. Another of the men stepped up to help his buddy out, knife glinting in his grip, and with that the fight  _really_ begun.

It was a wonder to watch Jackie fight, all sharp reflexes, punches and kicks edged with bravery that looked a little too much like foolishness on good days and like fear on the bad days. Fists seemed to glance off the thin red fabric he called his suit, weapons never keeping him down for long; he never stayed down for long. He couldn't  _afford_ to stay down, and he had learned that the hard way. The bruises hadn't faded for weeks, Henrik chewing him out relentlessly the first time and only heaving a disappointed sigh the second, third, fourth, fifth times. 

He never had the courage, ironically, to admit he liked the way the bruises looked on his skin, blues and purples and reds fading a sickly yellow. He knew thinking like that should be upsetting. He should be worried, if not for his mind then his body.

He didn't stop trying to avoid bruises, after that. After, after, after. So many things were different, but maybe the scariest things were what had remained the same. 

Someone swung a baseball bat at his head, startling him out of his thoughts, and a fresh high of adrenaline bloomed in his stomach. He could breathe deeply, for the first time that night, and everything snapped back into focus. The chemical felt like ice in his veins, felt like the burn of frigid air in the back of his throat, and he took another breath in. A deft move, a secure grip, and he wrenched the baseball bat out of its owner's hands to go flying into the shadows of the alley.

His heart beat so hard in his chest he couldn't hear anything over the rush of blood in his ears, and it felt like... it felt like coming home. There was cold metal on the other side of the fabric covering his palms, so he held tight until he could twist that too from its owner's hold.

It was a knife.

Blood spilled from the creases of his palms, red on the red of his suit, _red red_ red in the black of the night, red in the white of the street lights, red like the anger rising in his cheeks, and it  _hurt_ and he gasped, the knife clattering to the ground and taking far too much blood with it, still ever-so-red -

That was the last weapon the men had, but they could smell the literal blood in the figurative water, and he wondered when he had stopped thinking of them as _humans_ , and started thinking of them as nothing but  _enemy_ , but that thought too was lost to the dance of the fight, except he couldn't hear the beat of the music and he couldn't - he couldn't  _think_ , couldn't -

His vision went white, pure white and he still couldn't think - _couldn't breathe_ \- everything in the world disappeared, he couldn't feel the pain for a terrifying second, and for that one  _terrifying second_ he wondered if maybe, just maybe, this time he had  _gone too far -_

A new wave of pain hit him like a punch to the gut, or, more accurately, a knife slotted under his ribs. The thugs seemed to believe that would do him in, and he was alone with blood-soaked hands, the sound of their receding footsteps, and the worst headache of his life. Also, you know. Blood loss.

He staggered once, twice, and hit the ground. The small amount of air left in his lungs left him with a wet cough. He licked his lips and the metallic taste of his own blood, once ~~comforting~~ familiar, sat heavy in his mouth. He drew a stuttered breath in through his nose, determined not to add  _nausea_ to the growing list of Things Going Wrong Tonight.

It didn't help. He leaned to the side as best he could to avoid getting it all over his suit, which he just  _then_ realized would be a huge pain to clean, all blood and various unsavory substances. _Huge pain_. He would've laughed, but all his air had left again and he was left struggling to breathe like a man drowning, which he...technically was?  _Hard to think, hard to - couldn't think - hard to breathe -_

His hands were warm, he realized, blinking up at the stars just visible past the light pollution of the city. Warm, not cold. When had he last felt  _not cold_? He shivered, and refused to look down at his hands. Usually, his own blood on his hands made him feel the same way seeing his bruises did, but now -

He had nothing more to throw up, so his body settled for twisting up his already-abused guts painfully. His vision tunneled far too quickly for his liking, but he couldn't get up. His legs, weak and useless - and  _wow_ could he relate to that - weren't in any shape to get the rest of him off the ground, even if the rest of him had been okay with getting off the ground. Some distant part of his mind reminded him that dying in a back alley was really bad and he probably shouldn't do that, but most of him was simply exhausted to his bones. This was the line he loved to walk, wasn't it? Hadn't he toyed with his fear of exactly this situation for all this time? It scared him in that sometimes, the fear was all he had left, and he had grown to _rely_ on it. He had played chicken with death and, apparently, finally lost his nerve. 

His eyelids were heavy with a sleep he couldn't fight, a sleep he may or may not wake up from, but the peace that thought brought him scared him enough to wrestle his eyes open once more.

The stars, bright. Constant. Stars,  _stars_...

_"Nice outfit, man. New style?"_

_"Yes, yes! The shows are doing better than ever, and what is a good magician without a good cloak? My old one won't do anymore, no - the stars are a nice touch, eh?"_

_The excitement on his brother's face brought a smile to his own. "It looks good on you. When you get famous, don't forget about us little people, alright?"_

_The brightness in Marvin's voice changed to that special determination that had kept his passion alive through years of learning, of patience. "Of course not, Jackie. Never."_

"Stars," he breathed. "Stars, stars, oh, little star-" It became a mantra, or maybe a prayer, or maybe his last words, but nonetheless his shaking hands rose to the zipper under his chin. It took several tries to tug the tiny metal bit down, fingertips both slick and numb, but it wasn't much later before his neck and chest were fully exposed. Nestled in the space between the dips of his collarbones rested a tiny star charm on a thin chain, right over where his pulse rushed past, where his muscles tightened with the effort of sucking in air.

He didn't hesitate, bloody fingers enclosing around the pendant to feel it heat up against his chest and watch the flash of green light that came with activating the magic. It was the most beautiful thing he had seen, but then his hands went limp and he couldn't see at all.

* * *

 

"-ackie!!" Colorful cursing. "You  _idiot_ -"

His eyelids felt as if they were glued shut, sticky with tears. "Mm. Marv'n?"

There were hands on his face, and his arms, and when someone prodded the hole in his side, every fiber of his body tensed with electric pain. Voices (one sharp with worry-disguised-as-frustration and the other edged with a tired, rough German accent) filled the space above his head, both too loud to understand and too soft to hear, so he didn't worry much about it. "No, no, I'll get him, you just - yeah -"

The hands moved instead to loop under the bend of his knees and support his neck, and the nausea returned for a half-second as Marvin lifted him off the paved ground of the alley. Something thick and warm settled over him, a soft stretch of heavy fabric, and he contented himself with inhaling the gunpowder-y scent of Marvin's magic and the smell of the deodorant that had once been his until his little brother had stolen it from him. Under Marvin's cloak, it was easy to let go of the anxiety he had been holding on to since the first slice of the knife - he would live to fight another day. He could rest now...

"Don't you dare-" More cursing. "No falling asleep, not yet-" He frowned, scrunching up his face and turning to hide it against Marvin's shirt as hands patted his cheek roughly. These hands were colder, just slightly, and he cracked open his eyes to meet Henrik's. Worry and disappointment conflicted in the doctor's gaze, and Jackie looked away, unable to withstand the shame of knowing he had let down the others, the city, again. He had made promises, to protect those unable to protect themselves, to keep himself safe, to remain the anchor in the storm that was their lives now, and he had broken all of them. He had broken. _He was broken._

"I can feel you thinking from here, Jackie, so shut your mind up and let me do the thinking, alright? It's distracting." The annoyance in Marvin's tone was nothing more than another shield to keep his worry from shining through. The hero could both hear the words and feel the rumble of them in Marvin's chest from where his cheek rested against it, and it didn't really help with the whole 'not falling asleep' thing. "He's drifting again - just...I don't know, just keep hitting him, hold on-" Henrik resumed his harsh patting as Marvin closed his eyes to focus on the spell required to transport the three of them back home.

"You continue to take larger risks, and you must be stupid if you think we have not noticed, mein Bruder." The darkness smudged under his eyes and the way his accent caught on the jagged edges of his consonants betrayed his fatigue, but the doctor's stern gaze was as strong as ever. Jackie cowered under it for a few seconds more, until Henrik softened and instead let his hand rest on the other's face. "But we all make mistakes, Jackie. You cannot hate yourself every single time you feel you have done someone else wrong."

"I'm ready, let's go." Marvin's arms, one still supporting his legs and the other cradling his neck and back, warmed to an almost-uncomfortable temperature against his suit. Henrik held on to the magician's elbow, his other hand going to Jackie's hair for some comfort in the inevitably-painful journey home. "We've got you now, Jackie."

The hero smiled a bloody grin. "D'n't forg't me?"

Marvin found it in himself to return the smile. "Of course not, Jackie. Never."

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: After Jack goes into his coma, Jackie starts behaving recklessly in the field, seeking thrills and adrenaline kicks, the more dangerous, the better. He’s addicted to it, just like Chase and his alcohol.
> 
> i!! love this fandom with my whole heart so i'm a little ashamed it took me this long to write for it...what can i say, ya boi got pretty used to DBH okay


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